Susan Hwang

We’re playing at Halyards (not 12th St. Bar and Grill) tonight.  Halyards is located in Gowanus.  I’m also working on a song inspired by the block of 3rd Ave. between President and Union in the neighborhood of Gowanus (Marin Gazzaniga’s project MAPPING GOWANUS).  This is just to further illustrate the connectedness of everything.  I mean Carrie Fisher and her mom dying days of each other?  They were so connected.  That’s a hell of a mother-daughter relationship.  My mother and I think of each other constantly.  Kind of like all day.  We don’t talk on the phone.  Last time we texted, she sent me these emogees: 

I think it means she loves me.  I don’t know if we’ll die a day apart from each other, but we will die.  And I hear her voice all the time in my head as it is anyway.  We don’t even have to talk on the phone anymore.  We’re both the single people in the family now.  We tend to travel around the same time.  My mom with her Korean Pharmacists Association and also with her Jehovah’s Witnesses.  Me, with my bands.  I remember one summer I stopped in to see her at the tail end of a Debutante Hour southeast tour.  I drove in from Charlottesville, VA.  She had just come back from Richmond.  She was with her best friends, Julia and Nancy, a West Indian lady and a caucasian octogenarian.  I had just come back from touring with Debutante Hour.We had both just come back from road trips in the South with a white girlfriend and a black girlfriend!  That’s weird, right?  Another similarity is that we’re both into things we can’t see.  My mother is in a cult, and I’m new agey as all get out.  My mother joined a religion with really strict rules because rules make her feel safe.  I made up my own religion that includes the possibility of all truths and freedom up the wazoo.  See, we’re like two sides of the same coin.  We both believe in good food and feeding people.  Maybe the coin we incarnate is a meal.  We might be two sides of dinner.

Okay, so all this to say Lusterlit, my duo with Charlie Nieland playing all songs about books on a lot of instruments (guitar, bass, Janggu, accordion, lots of singing) is playing at Halyards tonight as a part of Terry Radigan’s RADIGAN ROUND UP.  She presents several songwriters and is playing herself tonight as a part of a collaboration with Rachelle Garniez and Amanda Homi called VickiKristinaBarcelona.  Also, Sasha Dobson is one of the songwriters tonight!  Holy cow, some of my favorite geniuses are on the bill.  I needed to tell you about it.

TONIGHT – December 29th, 8pm
Halyards
406 3rd Ave @6th St.
Brooklyn, NY 11215
FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/145904332564563/

I had time with geniuses last night too.  These geniuses.  NAN TURNER and her group NAN and The One Night Stands. (Plus John S. Hall’s new band, SENSATION PLAY!)

I get to shake it as a part of Nan’s dance troupe.  It’s dance, it’s performance art.  It’s part Janet Jackson and part Bob Fosse and all Nan.  She brings people together–glorious, creative, fun and brilliant types–as part of her annual NANCATION show in New York.  I love her art so much because it’s all her, streaming through, with honesty, with humor, with obvious joy and depth too and badassedness.  Lots of that.  Making it badass to be weird and to be kind and to be expressive.  You can check out her bandcamp: https://nanturner.bandcamp.com/ and also her band with Matt Roth – SCHWERVON.

Also, I leave you with today’s turmeric cake:
It’s raw cacao, cinnamon, turmeric, cayenne in an egg white base with chia and toasted flax seeds. Cacao nibs on top.  Apple cider vinegar and baking soda. Sweetened with stevia.  Keeping me alive and shushing the sciatica….

What I want to say to Kim Jong-un regarding http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/world/asia/kim-jong-un-north-korea-name-ban.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news:

Look, nobody does that anymore.  It’s very old-fashioned.  And how about feeding your people instead of monitoring their names?  What about that?  Being a Korean, I feel like I can pretty accurately say, Koreans like to eat.  Like really.  And nobody cares about your name.  Nobody.  But those people are still hungry.

There’s no word for “foodie” in Korean.  That’s because it’s considered just being alive.

Okay… speaking to dictators.  I’ve never done that before.  I should probably stick to what I know, like misinterpreting signs.

I liked seeing these signs everywhere in Montreal, because when I read it quickly, it always looked like “A Lover.”  Just big signs announcing lovers.  Like if you were looking for someone who loved so much that they identified themselves primarily as lovers, you could find one here.  Sat long enough next to that hater?  We have your antidote for you right here….  This was in Montreal.  Montreal apparently is chock full of lovers.  This must be why stores don’t open until at least 10am, and some don’t even open at all on some days.  Hey, when you have to love, you have to love, and love takes its own time.  And hopefully… it’s a long time.

And everyone wants to see God.  No one ever tires of that.  Look, in Montreal, they are asking directly.  Why beat around the bush (but check if it’s burning!).

While some people were looking for God, I found Jeffrey Lewis!

He was right here on this poster, announcing his coming arrival to Montreal.  And, what was funny was that I did get to see him last night at Shea Stadium in Brooklyn playing an inspiring, fun-charged, rock and roll night with Kung Fu Crimewave (you know the Kellys, right?  The Kellys of Brooklyn.  Talent and awesome is in their DNA) and the beloved, powerful surge of rock exuberance known as Schwervon!  Sniff…

The neat thing about an 11 hour train ride back to NYC is that it gives you lots of time to… make friends.  I mean, 11 hours together.  You have time to sleep and read and stare out the window and ask all kinds of personal questions about someone’s job, their family, the lives of saints, the devil and miracles.  Marcos and I talked about all those things.

He’s the first priest I ever met.  I had a lot of questions.  He was really open to answering them.  He might even come to a show some day.  He’s right over in New Jersey, and even a priest needs a night off for Christ’s sake.

I should text him about the show on Friday and have him be a guest speaker!

Friday, I’m playing a night of songs inspired by The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” called Call and Response.  It’s a new series created by NYC musician and writer Ben Arthur.  Singer songwriters present songs in response to other artists and artwork.  I’m psyched to play…  I’ve got a lot to say about the Devil and about sympathy.  And I love it when I think of ways to make things even better, like when I asked Marlon Cherry to join me on percussion and vocals.  Oh gosh.  It’s going to be really fun.  All Satan all night with a Cherry on top!!!

Friday, December 5th, 8:30pm (doors 8:15pm)
Rockwood Music Hall, Stage 3
185 Orchard Street
New York, NY
tickets: http://www.ticketfly.com/event/702367-call-response-answer-songs-new-york/